It was not a violation of human rights when Norway granted permits for oil drilling in the Arctic in 2016. This is what the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled, according to the Reuters news agency.
The case stems from a decision the Norwegian state made in 2016. Here, the country's Ministry of Energy issued ten licenses that allowed companies to search for oil in a new area in the Barents Sea north of Norway. This happened the year after the Paris Agreement was adopted.
It is Greenpeace Norway, the Norwegian environmental organization Natur & Ungdom and six climate activists who have sued the Norwegian state. In 2020, the Norwegian Supreme Court ruled that the oil drilling did not violate the Norwegian constitution.
However, the environmental organizations and activists believed that the drilling had endangered the environment and deprived young people of their right to life. Therefore, they took the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
The European Court of Human Rights receives complaints from individuals and states. The decisions of the court are legally binding on the state in question. However, all European states that have joined the court must continuously follow the decisions that are made.
The states are therefore obliged to adjust their legislation and practice so that they comply with the decisions of the ECHR. In April 2024, the court ruled in three other climate cases. This was the first time that it had to deal with climate law cases of principle.
Here, two lawsuits were dismissed, while in the last case it was decided that Switzerland had violated human rights in some cases. The case was brought by a group of elderly Swiss women who believed that Switzerland had not introduced sufficient national policies to tackle climate change.
The plaintiffs pointed out that as elderly women they are more at risk than other groups of citizens of dying during heat waves as a result of climate change.
/ritzau/
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